Affiliated With:

Donald L. Kohn

Vice Chair (Board of Governors)2006 - 2010

Donald L. Kohn became a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on August 5, 2002. He served as vice chairman from June 23, 2006 to June 23, 2010. He retired from the Board of Governors on September 1, 2010.

Kohn was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1964, he received a bachelor’s degree from the College of Wooster. He earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan in 1971.

Unlike most members of the Board of Governors, Kohn is a veteran of the Federal Reserve System. He began his career as a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 1970. In 1975, he came to the Board of Governors, where he was an economist until 1978. He then became chief of capital markets in 1978 and associate director of the Division of Research and Statistics in 1981. In 1983, Kohn was promoted to deputy staff director for monetary and financial policy. In 1987, Kohn became director of the Division of Monetary Affairs. Kohn was secretary of the Federal Open Market Committee from 1987 to 2002 and served as an adviser to the Board for monetary policy from 2001 to 2002.

After leaving the Board of Governors, Kohn was appointed to the Bank of England's Interim Financial Policy Committee in September 2011.

Kohn has written volumes of information on the Federal Reserve’s implementation of monetary policy. These writings have been published by a number on organizations, including the Federal Reserve System, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and the Brookings Institution.

Outside his career at the Federal Reserve, Kohn has received a number of awards. He was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Money Marketeers of New York University in 2002, the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Wooster in 1998, and a Doctor of Laws (honorary) degree from the College of Wooster in 2006.

Kohn was also the chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System, a central bank panel that monitors and examines broad issues related to financial markets and systems.